OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum » The Most Difficult Choice I've Ever Made

Sugar Magnolia · May 31, 2017 12:41 pm

I’ve been coming to this site for almost a year. I’m still reeling from my discovery after almost 2 years . My husband and I were together for 10 years. Married for 6. I’m in the final stages of the divorce process now.

I thought we had an ideal marriage. My magnetic north. He meant more to me than anything. I feel like I’m mourning a death. I’m severely depressed most of the time. We had good jobs, traveled the world, inside jokes and laughter, cuddling, great sex, and no real fights/arguments. He was always so sweet to me. We have no children. He was married once before, I should have listened to his ex-wife when she said I was a fool.

June 2015 - I found the craigslist ad he posted….Men seeking men or men seeking transexuals. He was looking to dress up as woman and be trained to service a man (ANY man) orally and much, much more. He wanted to be tortured and humiliated. And the replies to that ad were even more graphic. Exchanging pictures and him offering to host hookups at our house while i was at work or traveling.

I found secret email addresses that led me to craigslist accounts - dozens upon dozens of ads looking for homosexual hookups, including one involving the both of us on our honeymoon (cuckolding). He sent complete strangers pics of me along with my sexual preferences, descriptions of my body, and details of what i like in bed. I went into the computer history and I found hundreds of sites that have been visited over the past decade all related to transexual, sissy, crossdressing, and forced feminization. I had to google a few of the things mentioned in his ad, I’d never heard of ‘total power exchange’ before. Yikes!
I consider myself pretty worldly, but all of this scared me and still does. I know little about this world and discovered more than I ever want to know about it.

The confrontation obviously didn’t go well. After weeks of crying and arguing I agreed to stay with him. I so badly wanted to believe it would never happen again. He swore he was ‘just curious’, ‘just wanted to try it one time’, and, of course, ‘nothing ever happened.’ 6 months later I found new web searches for gay porn stores and pictures of naked men. I spent so much time trying to label him - is he gay, is he transexual? He admits to being bi. I know for certain he’s a cross-dresser and has been for a long time. He won’t admit to this.

Trying to label him was somewhat of an obsession for me for a while and I eventually had to stop. I feel like I’ve been psychologically damaged from all of this. Even though I’m moving through this, I don’t want to. I still love him. I miss our life together so much. I wish there was a way to change it but I’ve had to accept that I can’t. I feel as if 10 years of my life has been stolen from me. I’m at a point where nothing seems worthwhile. I see other couples holding hands and kissing and I break down crying in public. A cat I had for 17 years died recently and I didn’t feel any sadness about it. I don’t judge other people when they say they’re divorced but now I’m embarrassed to talk about my own situation and feel as if my life is a failure.

Coincidentally, my discovery was during the same week as the SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage. I was happy - I have gay friends and I know how much this meant to them. My discovery came during gay pride week - we live in the most gay-friendly city in America. He is still insisting we can make it work. I have thought about taking him back hundreds of times but it’s the support of my family/friends and this forum that tells me I should not, can not, do that. Sometimes, I go to the courthouse to file paperwork wearing the clothes I’ve slept in.

This forum has been so incredibly valuable to me. There are times when I wake up at 2 a.m. crying hysterically, and I come on here to read the posts. A few of the members seem to have undergone the same flavor of cross-dressing, gender dysmorphic, mindf*&k, and it’s helped to read through their experiences. Thank you to everyone for sharing their stories. This really is a club that no one should ever have to join.

Last edited by Sugar Magnolia (May 31, 2017 12:45 pm)

Duped · May 31, 2017 1:29 pm

Deleted

Last edited by Duped (November 11, 2019 3:02 pm)

phoenix · May 31, 2017 1:32 pm

hi Suger Magnolia.
You are so right.. none of us want to have to be a member of this club. But here we are.. and we are invaluable to each other. Welcome to our family. We value you and I'm so happy you finally signed up and shared your story. I think you will find that posting your experiences and asking questions and sharing with others is very therapeutic.

Your feelings are so like my own.. feeling like I had 16 years of my life stolen from me, the pain of knowing my ex cheated on me while married, then pain of the lies and dishonesty. It's truly awful to be treated so badly by any human being.. worst of all the person who should love you most.

But you are surviving! Sure it's hard, but you are doing it. You've done the hardest parts already.. separating from him, filing the divorce and starting to move forward with your life. Stay the course, finish the job and try to find some hope in the future. You are an amazing woman with an amazing future in front of you.

Kel · May 31, 2017 2:54 pm

Hi there, Sugar -

I'm sorry you need to be here, but I'm glad you've been helped by doing so. What you're going through is very traumatic, confusing, sad, upsetting and full of mourning. But you're doing it - even if you don't want to be.

So what specifically made you leave? It seems like a question with an obvious answer, I'm sure. But it's not, really. Was it that you were living a false happiness - where you thought he was faithful and honest and you knew him, but you didn't? Was it that you thought he most certainly HAD cheated, and thought that unforgivable? Was it that no matter what he'd done in the past, you felt there was no stopping this runaway train? Was it that he'd betrayed you by putting your pics on the internet and talking about your private preferences? There must have been at least a part of you that realized that even if you were happy while he was secretly doing all of this, you can never unknow it now?

Have you seen a counselor and doctor about the depression? If not, you really should. It can help take the edge off the pain without it taking any of your personality away.

Any time you're distraught at 2 am, post and I'm sure someone will post back in the morning. We're happy to help.

I'm sorry you're going through this.

Kel

Last edited by Kel (May 31, 2017 2:55 pm)

OutofHisCloset · May 31, 2017 3:55 pm

My husband is the same flavor as yours. Although I don't know the full story leading up to his March 2015 declaration to me that he was trans and wanted to transition, I got enough of it to know that for the two years prior to this declaration he'd been trying on my discarded panties and bras, reading lesbian romance novels, visiting trans sites, and yes, viewing porn--he told me at one point that he was fascinated by she-males, fantasized about becoming one, and declared he was a masochist and wanted to be punished.
   I had no idea any of this was happening. Like you I now know more than I ever thought could be known about this topic and wish I knew none of it. Like you, I spent hundreds of hours trying to label and understand his condition. He has said that all these activities are simple proof that he is a woman, and that he would have been allowed to "become" one if only he'd been born now, when his childhood urges--one episode of trying on his mother's slip and drawig breasts on himself with a lipstick in an entire childhood of an otherwise normal boy's life--could be recognized and supported rather than suppressed.
   Only recently have I begun to wonder just how much porn is implicated in his fascination with the onset of this idea of himself as a woman, and the sexual pleasure he derives in pretending to be (a pornified fantasy of) one. I'd always thought only that he was a non-sexist, kind, ethical man, someone I could respect; he wrestled with whether a man could be "a male feminist," but he never gave me a clue he wanted to be a woman.
     Sometimes I wonder if the selfies of himself in lingerie with a "breast" revealed or his penis peeking out from the hem of a chemise or protruding from the top of lace bikinis (never with his face showing) are out there on the internet somewhere. I don't care to find out, would prefer not to know.
     What I do know is that he has turned into a mirror image or backwards version of what he used to be: instead of being apathetic about or ignoring gender norms, he has become obssessed with it, declaring "everything is gendered!", and gendering everything: every gesture, every item of clothing, every attitude, everything! That women are usually shorter than men meant that I had to stand on a stair or table to kiss him, so that I would be taller than he is and he could tilt his head back, because tilting a head back was now a signal of female submissiveness rather than the body mechanics required when a short person and a tall person kiss standing up. Although I have never been a very feminine woman and he had, for example, said he loved my "strong hands," he started acting in stereotypically feminine ways. His version of "woman" is everything I am not and that I reject as a definition of woman, and in his embrace of the misogynistic stereotype of woman (emotional, coy, manipulative, etc) I have lost all the respect I formerly had for him as a man who could see a woman first and foremost as a human being like himself.
   But...I still love him. I have loved him for more than 40 years; we've been married 35 years this year. And yet, like you, I know I can't continue to live with him, can't live the rest of my life in these circumstances. Out of the blue and despite my learning to distance myself emotionally, suddenly somethig I read or see or hear or realize or remember I will find myself grieving.
   I feel, like you, that my husband is dead and I am grieving him--and not because he's now a "woman" (as the trans narrative would have it), but because he's chosen absent himself from our marriage, chosen to enter into the world inside his head, to interact with the woman he'd like to be who so fascinates him emotionally and sexually. He'd rather make love with himself as her than to me. He's chosen a fantasy life by himself over our actual life together. Yet he asserts that autogynephilia is simply an "alternative sexuality" that "doesn't hurt anyone."
     As you do, I wish there were a way to change it and to change the way he thinks about it (a pre-requisite to his changing it); I have a hard time believing that he can't be brought to his senses, even as I know that's as unlikely as my paranoid and delusional father giving up his fantasies that "the kooks" were monitoring him 24/7. It's uncanny to me how my formerly sane and rational husband has morphed into a person who like my father did insists I validate a reality I know to be anything but reality based.
   I guess what I'm saying is, I hear you sister.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (May 31, 2017 4:09 pm)

Duped · May 31, 2017 4:26 pm

Deleted

Last edited by Duped (November 11, 2019 3:02 pm)

Sugar Magnolia · May 31, 2017 8:47 pm

Thank you, phoenix. I really appreciate that. When I hear of other people’s experiences it’s so comforting. It’s so sad but therapeutic. We always try to find a bright side in things, having grown children, or none at all to consider, being financially stable, having family support, etc. but it’s hard to look at yourself as lucky when all you want now was a choice before you fell in love. It helps to know that being emotional, confused, and second-guessing yourself every minute is normal. The fear that I may never fully get over this is still in me. I think it will. There will always be answers we deserve but will probably never get.
I have to say Sean’s awesome mega-thread where he answers questions from the gay spouse’s point of view has been so honest at times. I appreciate being given the chance to understand the struggles of suppressing such feelings as well as the guilt associated with hurting a loved one. You all are so amazing. I guarantee there are more people reading these stories that will ever post and it really helps a lot. Thanks!

Last edited by Sugar Magnolia (May 31, 2017 8:53 pm)

Sugar Magnolia · May 31, 2017 10:21 pm

Duped & OOHC. Thanks! This is all so familiar to me. Sometimes when I talk about this out loud to another person, I start laughing because it all seems so bizarre. I really am sorry you are going through this.

I often find myself thinking that I should be more accepting and willing to go down this road with him. That had he told me in a mature manner and given some time I might have been able to adjust to it. But the way I found out was so shocking. Reading all your posts and many similar stories tells me that if i did it's likely that the boundaries would only get pushed further and further. He says I'm wrong about everything, that I don't understand. That he's bisexual and has a fetish for penises but not for men (???). And that he'd rather I participate in his feminizing, cuckolding, and humiliation. His internet activity reflects many of the scenarios you've described. I was naive to the spectrum of crossdressing, this is on the extreme side, probably trans, at least from my view. It's nearly impossible for my mind to not resort to trying to label this. I know there's been toys, clothes, etc. thrown away again and again. He mentioned knowing he was kinky since he was young. I don't think it's going to stop. From what I've read it will probably escalate. I don't know if it can or should be cured. Even if SSA wasn't an issue there's what seems like an addiction here...very compulsive.

And this expression of femininity is so completely absurd at times. Ridiculous on so many levels. I don't know any woman who masturbates and poses compulsively in lingerie, solicits sex with strangers on the internet, watches porn obsessively, or even one that reads lesbian romance novels for that matter. It's like some black hole of misogynist thinking. I too can't help but wonder how much porn contributes to this behavior. The influence and addiction is left out of a lot of discussions perhaps because it has it's own shameful associations outside of SSA. It's amazing how much of a demand there is for these particular genres.

I'm not sure if it's true but I've heard that these fetishes become harder to control as men get older. I've also read that the urges escalate when the female partner goes through menopause, or when a teenage daughter goes through puberty (he had one). I might find this fascinating if it were not my husband.

I can't entertain the image of him acting like a hooker or a lesbian in bed or around the house. I don't think seeking out men and transexuals on CL for 10 years is driven by just fantasy and people flaking out. Maybe there is some huge turn-on from solely exposing yourself and getting attention? It's hard for me to believe that 2 men intent on having sex would not follow through on it. I'm not sure it matters whether or not if he actually has. The image my 6 ft. tall, hairy, masculine husband in panties and heels acting like a porn star servicing me, a transexual or a man, is not something I ever want to think about. I don't ever want to have search through M4M/M4T postings looking to find images of my husband again.

It's so surreal to have 'another woman' in your relationship in this way. In my case, I've never met her. I never considered myself to be closed-minded sexually but this is a bit much for me to handle. He wouldn't admit to it but I do hold fear that one day he would want to transition as many have experienced.

I used to hear or see things in other people's relationships that made me wonder 'how do they stay with that person?' I don't think I'll ever question anyone's choices again because it's so hard to leave.

Thanks for talking. I can't say that enough.

Last edited by Sugar Magnolia (May 31, 2017 10:27 pm)

Rob · May 31, 2017 10:23 pm

Sugar,

You can always rant here. Reading your story I get it... I sadly lost more years ..it seems a lifetime.
I definitely had trauma bonding or insane loyalty .. what amazes me now is I most certainly didn't die without her but I also am having a hard time gettng over the hurt and trauma. I do get sad when seeing other couples and I was sad and glad to visit my friend from college; to see his intact family where the 2 of them contribute to the family both emotionally and financially. But we are so much better off without our abusers...the couples we see are most likely normal people.

Post here...we get it. But also remember how much better it is to be away from such an inauthentic person who cannot be trusted ....then go do something kind for yourself.

Sugar Magnolia · June 1, 2017 9:02 am

Hi Kel, Thank you so much! I’ve read many of your posts here and you are truly a gift to people going through these situations.

I guess I decided to leave after taking him back for about 8 months - During that time I found map searches for gay videos and gay porn stores near our home. I suspect he got better at hiding most of his other activity. I checked his phone once and the web browser opened up to a private window instead of the normal one, so that fact that he’s even using a private window tells me a lot.

Even finding evidence like this, you still want to believe there’s some way they’ll just stop. And most of the time I’d rather not think about it anyway. Our day to day life during those 8 months was pretty good, sometimes sex was difficult for me due to certain imagery in my head. There was of course the overcompensating, the ’love-bombing’ for the first month or so. But there were some very minor frustrations…things that I would normally never consider divorce-worthy offenses. He became much less productive and couldn’t accomplish basic errands or tasks, sometimes for weeks or months. Financial irresponsibility. I knew he was doing something with all of his free time.

I asked him to move out for 6 months. During that time I saw a counselor. Even more helpful was telling 2 of my best friends the complete truth. They’ve known and liked my husband for 10 years. Saying all of this out loud to another person really helps. My friends have proven to incredibly supportive. My love for them has only multiplied through all of this. They still call, sometimes everyday. We talk about other stuff mostly. But sometimes we have the “I’m doing the right thing, aren’t I?” conversation. If they told me this about their SOs, I’d probably tell them to leave, too.

After 1 month he says he needs to move back in or he’ll have to transfer out of town with his job. I don’t know if he was bluffing or trying to manipulate me. But I said if that’s the case I think we should divorce. I told my parents as well. They’re pretty old school, divorce-under-no-circumstances Catholics, and even they supported me. I have no intention of ever telling his family or our mutual friends. But I realized that I cannot hide the truth from people that are close to me. This whole thing has shattered my pride tremendously, and I cannot allow these secrets (which I’m still very confused about) eat away at me without letting them out somehow. I have to live with the fact that he’s probably telling people we grew apart or that I left him because he’s bad with money or whatever. It’s hard to accept but I’m letting it go.

It’s been so hard not to contact him. He ended up moving away. Like Duped, I have those too much wine moments…We text and I’m unloading and he’s telling me how much he loves me and still wants to work it out. It’s so sad because I believe him. I know he's hurting and feeling guilty. All I want him to say is that it will never happen again and for that to be true. But objectively, I know that’s not possible.

The depression seems unbearable sometimes. I have found some ways to occupy myself outside of the house but there are days where I stare at the wall for what seems like hours, just kind of numb. Sometimes I think it would be so much easier if I hated him and wanted him to suffer - it’s the exact opposite. I’d stay best friends with him for the rest of my life if I could, but that's not realistic.

Last edited by Sugar Magnolia (June 1, 2017 9:03 am)

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